She didn’t know where to go or what to do. The massive Century Plaza Hotel caught her eye. It was a place to get lost in. She was greeted by doormen in red beefeater costumes. The lobby, with its marble columns and massive chandeliers, housed travel agencies and fancy boutiques. She imagined the shopkeepers looking down at her wearing the nicest outfit she owned, a cheap May Company dress. The swanky restaurants, the Vineyard and Yamato, with menus displayed near the entrance like fine art, made her acutely aware of her dwindling cash reserves. Now, after her year of excess with Mitch, she hardly had enough money to buy a dozen eggs. She stopped to look at the framed, signed black-and-white photos of people who’d been there who were far more important than she was or would ever be: Prince Andrew, Richard Nixon, Bob Hope, and the Apollo 11 astronauts. If Sam had thought that the Rice Hotel was impressive, imagine what he would have thought of the sparkling Century Plaza. She fingered the Texas pendant Sam had given her. She’d started to wear it every day to remind herself not to be an idiot. Little good it did.

She walked into the bar and took her place on a stool. She ordered a rum and Coke, knowing that she wouldn’t have to pay for it. Sooner or later, dressed the way she was, her face caked in makeup, some guy would show up like an ant at a picnic. The bartender set her drink in front of her. She peeled the wrapper off the straw from the bottom up, the way she always had with Roberta at the Dairy Bar, back in the days of sticky candy bracelets and cigarette gum. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend.

A man in a plaid sport coat and gabardine slacks tapped her on the shoulder. “Ask me what time it is,” he said.

If she didn’t need him to pay for her drink, she’d have swatted him away like a fly. “OK, what time is it?”

He lifted his arm to check his bare wrist. “Half past a freckle. Pretty bad, huh? I’m Gabe.”

Sherri shook his hand. His fingers were soft and sweaty. Everything about him, even his name, was soft. She didn’t want to tell him her real name. “I’m Roberta.” She lit a cigarette and tried to act as tough and as cool as her old friend, speaking with him just enough so that he’d keep her from dying of loneliness and cover her tab. But she stubbed out the cigarette after only a few puffs. It didn’t taste good. Neither did the drink. Gabe said he ran a company that made the rolling mechanism for credit card machines. He lived in Orlando, had she ever been there? “Yeah, sure,” she said, because Roberta actually had. “Disney. Oranges.”